


Negotiations Can Be Tricky

by cnoocy



Category: The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
Genre: Gen, Negotiations, Puns & Word Play, Synonyms, numbers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 17:44:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8810056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnoocy/pseuds/cnoocy
Summary: Tick (Tock's brother) and the Icosahedron are off to the old City of Wisdom for negotiations between Dictionopolis and Digitopolis. But is there enough wisdom to get the two sides to understand each other?





	1. Tick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misslucyjane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslucyjane/gifts).



Quiet moments always make me think of my brother. Not because he's in any way quiet. He's been talkative ever since he was a puppy. But since our names got messed up when we were born, any time there's no sound, I can hear myself going “tocktocktocktocktock” and think of Tock. I don't mind. My parents expected that I would go “tickticktickticktick.” Can you imagine? Any time I took a break I would hear my name, endlessly reminding me that I should be doing something. 

I'm not one to waste time, but I do like to watch it pass sometimes.


	2. The Icosahedron Has a Task

I could hear Tick tocking quietly as I approached his door. For a watchdog, he is rather prone to idleness. I knocked. “Tick, I know you're in there. The Mathemagician needs your help.”

The door opened and a nose poked out. “Public service is my parents’ calling, Icosahedron. You know that.”

Tick only calls me by my full name when he's annoyed. I put on my most patient face. “We need someone who is good at listening, but won't waste time. That's you. The miners just want to get their work done, and everyone else will get caught up in details.”

He tocked suspiciously. “What's the job?”

“Moderating the talks between Digitopolis and Dictionopolis.” The nose retreated, but I had a circumstance bonus up my sleeve. “You get a car ride to the old city of Wisdom.”

The nose stopped retreating. “...Okay.”


	3. A Fast Drive Down the Coast

Ike’s car is the fastest in the Kingdom of Wisdom. It’s a Venti XX convertible, and it averages ten and a half inches per centisecond, but it can go up to 30.7 megameters per week. A refreshing wind ruffled my fur as we rode down the coast. “Why aren't the princesses moderating the talks?” I asked her.

“They are still catching up on their backlog of judgements, and they don't want to tempt the two sides to ask them which is better. You know how that ends.”

I shook off the memory like I had water on my back. “I do. So are the brothers talking directly?”

“Certainly not. Azaz sent his cabinet, and the Mathemagician has sent my siblings and me.”

“The talks are between you Platonic Solids and the Cabinet? Are you sure I shouldn’t just take a leap over to the island over there on our left?”

“There’s no need to jump to Conclusions. Everyone has promised to be on their best behavior. We all want the talks to succeed.”

I snuffled. “Do you want to bet how much time I’ll tock off before things get heated?”

Ike gave me a look with a shoulder face. “If they do, it’s your job to fix it. That’s why I brought you.”


	4. The City of Wisdom

The city of Wisdom bustled with activity. After the princesses’ long absence, the citizens were shaking off their despair and their city's disrepair with zeal. New wings were being added to libraries and universities, old buildings were being cleaned and repainted, and the auditoriums and amphitheatres were full of public lecture and debates. My faces gazed with wonder at the busy city.

“Where are the talks being held?” asked Tick. Are we going to be in one of these parks, with people watching and eating popcorn?”

“No, we're in the Convention Center,” I replied. “It's where the conventional wisdom is stored.” I stopped my car at the large building with “YOU LOSE MOST OF YOUR HEAT THROUGH YOUR HEAD” above the doors.

Tick looked up. “This is conventional wisdom? I am beginning to see why they keep it locked away,” he said.


	5. The Solids Have Attitudes

As we entered the Convention Center, Ike's siblings ran to greet us.

“Hooray, you got him!” said the Dodecahedron happily. “Now we can get things rolling.”

“I suppose he will do,” said the Octahedron evenly. “He can keep us from working at cross purposes.”

“I don't see why we need a moderator,” the Cube said. “It's easy to fit together.”

“This will only work if I get top billing,” the Tetrahedron said sharply. “Otherwise we’ll be much too unstable.”

The Platonic Solids are not all as well-rounded as the Icosahedron. I would have my work cut out for me. “Is the Cabinet here already?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the Octahedron. “They are in the meeting room trying out the chairs.”

I took a deep breath. “Onward, then.” I followed the five shapes into the room.


	6. Communication Difficulties

As we entered, the Cabinet stood, and after we found our seats, they bowed to us. 

“Meeting,” the duke said. “1. A place where two objects touch or intersect. 2. The act of coming together for some purpose. 3. The regular institution of such an act.”

“Thank you,” the minister replied. “We are here to agree to arrangements that are mutually beneficial to our two realms, and we believe that these tasks can be as friendly...”

“Amicable,” added the earl.

“Sociable,” the count interjected.

“As possible,” the undersecretary continued.

“But those aren't in any way the same!” the Dodecahedron shouted.

The Cabinet stared at him in confusion. “There are shades of meaning, but ‘friendly’, ‘amicable’, and ‘sociable’ are generally synonyms, are they not?” asked the minister.

“Why, not at all,” the Tetrahedron said. “The terms describe relations that are related but distinct. Friendly describes groups of numbers like 6 and 28,” the Tetrahedron said.

“Amicable groups are ones like 220 and 284,” said the Cube.

The Octahedron continued, “and Sociable includes Amicable, but also includes longer sequences like 1264460, 1547860, 1727636, and 1305184.”

“Longer sequences?” moaned the bewildered duke. “I don't understand the short ones. Can we make them as short as possible?”

“Of course. If they're as short as possible, they're Perfect,” said the Dodecahedron helpfully, “like 6 and like 28. That's why those two are Friendly.”

“I don't understand,” cried the undersecretary. “Next you'll be telling us there's a difference between 5 and 5!”

I tried, but I couldn't resist. “115,” I replied.


	7. Tick Takes Action

Ike's answer was the last straw. “Enough!” I barked.

The rest of them all sat down, silent. I sipped from a glass of water with the straw. Then I put my front paws up on the table, and switched two signs, so that the “Dictionopolis” sign was in front of the Solids and the “Digitopolis” sign was in front of Azaz’s Cabinet. 

“Now, instead of wasting time with rhetorical flourishes and numerical categorizations,” I growled, “I want you to speak in a way that the other side might understand.”

The Solids put their most careful faces on. The Cabinet gulped as one. They could all tell that I had no patience for any more wasted time as I tocked menacingly at them from the head of the table.

Everyone was silent as they tried to comply with my command. Ike spoke first. “We would… like to… trade with you.”

The undersecretary responded, “What… things would you… like to… trade?”

Another brief silence. The Cube said “Would you like to… count things?”

The Octahedron quickly added, “Count as in measure, not as in the count’s title.”

The earl gasped. “Real prices in the market! How wonderful!”

“Can we offer you descriptions in return?” asked the count.

“We could have green trees and singing birds,” mused the Dodecahedron. “I do like the idea of that.”

They continued negotiating productively.


	8. A Request at the Wisdom Café

We all went to the Wisdom Café to celebrate. As we ate our oatmeal reason cookies, the undersecretary asked Tick, “Good watchdog friend, how did you know that having us switch dialects would work?”

“When Tock and I fought as puppies, our parents would tell us to listen to ourselves. We’d hear each other’s names and start to understand how the other felt.”

“You’ll have to include that when we write this up for the Mathemagician,” I told him.

“When you do,” asked the Tetrahedron, “could you make the number of words in your report a tetrahedral number, like 969, 1330, or 1771, as a favor to me?”

There was a tocktocktocktocktock as Tick thought. “No.”


End file.
